Month: April 2019

Money is Energy

The cliche “you gotta spend money to make money” is so true.

And the idea of scarcity is damaging, too. I mean, I get it. Money doesn’t grow on trees. Don’t be foolish with money. But also don’t doubt your own abilities and skills.

You’ve made money before, you’ll make it again.

Being Broke Sucks

A friend recently took a considerable paycut. Scary in itself, but many times scarier when you’ve got multiple mouths to feed, a mortgage, and car payments. It sucks.

And this friend is a dude pal of mine. Dudes, who are conditioned for years to be the “breadwinners,” the “head of households.” The “provider.” These are 50s era hold-overs, right? From a time when a single paycheck could provide a good life and college was $400.

This friend has taken a hit both in the wallet, and mentally. We’ve been talking quite a bit, but finally got to the source. It’s the money part. It’s making less, not providing “enough,” or as before.

I know this goes for both sexes (especially with women making less than men right out of the gate), but trying our best to not tie our self worth to our bank accounts is god damn hard work.

Without money in the bank, without “spending money,” it’s harder to meet up with friends for dinner, travel for weddings, and about a million other social things.

I know, because I’ve been piss broke the last few years. When the subject came up of that cool new show on Netflix, which at the time cost just $8/mo, I changed the subject; “oh, I just don’t watch a lot of TV” I’d say, which was a way for me to avoid, “oh, I can’t afford that.”

Money can’t buy happiness, sure. There’s a lot of miserable rich people out there. But money buys you choices, and affords you dignity, which is damn near priceless.

FIGHT

Fill your bones today with a resolve to fight, ready to do battle with any who’d oppose your fantastic dance moves and / or witty banter.

That background is a photo I took inside an old barn nearby. And “fight?” Well, just me tooling around more with Procreate on my iPad.

I cancelled Sling. Amazon Prime. Do my best to read more, scroll less. All of that, though, is a fight. At the end of the day, hell, by 10am, all I wanna do is scroll, and open up ESPN in the background, you know?

But I know my time is better spent listening to good podcasts, and buying the occasional artwork or album from an independent artist.

We all fight our own fight, and how I fight isn’t how you fight, and that’s okay. Keep fighting.

Now Is It

There was yesterday, there is now, and maybe tomorrow will appear. Like, we sort of assume it’ll be here. And for a lot of people it will be here, but someday, for you, for me, it won’t arrive. At some point, it’ll be game over.

Like, I’ve made it to 42, and in May I’ll turn 43. I sort of assume I’ll make it there, just like I assume I’ll make it to the Philly 10K in August, too.

But really, a lot can happen between now and then, and then is really tomorrow. Over and over again is “then,” until we run out.

While I like to pretend that I live for today, and push to have no regrets, wow, I’m lazy. There’s so much I could be doing, but I don’t. You know, just putting it off until tomorrow.

But really, now is it. Yesterday doesn’t exist anymore, tomorrow ain’t a promise, so he we are. This isn’t some morbid threat, just, hey… now is it.